LeadHERship

LeadHERship is a women’s leadership event where students, alumni, faculty and administration come together to enjoy food, network and foster mentor-mentee relationships.

Students, staff, faculty and community members will engage and learn about more inclusive and holistic notions of leadership, what’s happening on campus and interesting facts and endeavours through connecting with other women. Students will also discuss their personal leadership style and ways in which they are affected or enhanced by gender.

This event is open to all students, staff, faculty, alumni and community members!

Registration

Panelist: Dani Magsumbol

Dani Magsumbol is currently in the second year of the MSc in Planning Program at the University of Toronto's Department of Planning and Geography. Her work is guided by her mission to work with and give back to the Filipino community. Her research is centred on the ways in which female temporary foreign workers, specifically Filipino live-in caregivers, define and experience safety within urban settings. Dani is currently a Capacity Builder at Kapisanan Philippine Centre for Arts and Culture, a Filipino charity and non-profit that employs a led-by-youth-for-the-youth framework in their leadership and programming, an organisation with whom she has been involved in various capacities since 2014.

Panelist: Dr. Mary Reid

Dr. Mary Reid is an Assistant Professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE). Her work inspires change by combating gender inequities in math achievement. Women are vastly under-represented in STEM fields and Mary’s research reveals that this problem begins at a very early age. Despite no differences in math performance between males and females, girls feel more anxious about math and have lower confidence in their math abilities compared to boys. Mary critically examines factors contributing to the math gender imbalance, such as a lack of female role models, math anxiety, implicit bias, stereotype threat, and work-family issues.

Panelist: Rupaleem Bhuyan

Rupaleem Bhuyan is an Associate Professor in the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work at the University of Toronto. As a university-based researcher, educator, and immigrant of Assamese origin, Dr. Bhuyan embraces principles of “engaged scholarship” (also known as public scholarship) by positioning research as a conduit for practitioners’ and community knowledge. Her research, teaching and service stem from a life-long commitment to address gender-based violence in immigrant and refugee communities through advocacy, participatory action research, and engaged scholarship. Towards better understanding the social risks for violence among immigrants, Dr. Bhuyan’s research and advocacy focus on the social rights of people who—because they are not granted citizenship or legal permanent residency—are excluded from social citizenship envisioned within liberal democratic states.

Since 2010, Dr. Bhuyan has led the Migrant Mothers Project (MMP), which is a feminist collaborative research project at the University of Toronto that works in partnership with a network of service providers, legal advocates, community health workers, and grassroots women. The MMP has conducted several qualitative and policy studies to understand how immigration policies impact the safety and rights of immigrant women who have a precarious immigration status.

Facilitator Information

Interested in being a conversation facilitator at LeadHERship? Please let us know via email at leadership@utoronto.ca.

Women’s Organization

Did you know there are organizations around the University of Toronto Downtown Campus that support women? Here are a few of them.

The Centre for Women and Trans People is committed to providing a safe, harassment-free drop in space for all women and trans people on campus. We provide free support, referrals, resources and advocacy on issues of sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, ageism, violence, health and poverty through our workshops, events, services and programming.

The Centre was founded by U of T women undergraduate students in 1986. They organized to create a safe, accessible space for all women at U of T to gather, seek support, and advocate on issues relevant to them. The Centre is a student funded, volunteer driven, non profit, campus, community organization governed by its Collective.

Sistering is a multi-service agency for at-risk, socially isolated women in Toronto who are homeless or precariously housed. We have been serving this community for over 35 years, validating women’s experiences regardless of outcomes. These marginalized women come from diverse backgrounds and include: women with substance use and mental health issues; women who have experienced, or are experiencing, trauma and violence; immigrant and refugee women; women with disabilities; and women without legal status.

The Migrant Mothers Project (MMP) is a community-university collaboration examining the impact of immigration policies on the rights, safety, and security of women with precarious immigration status. Since 2013 MMP has worked to document the impact that conditional settlement policies have on the safety of migrant women. Repealing Conditional Permanent Residence is an important step towards acknowledging the power imbalances that create vulnerability, especially for immigrant women, through Canada’s immigration policies.